“Abortion activist Wendy Davis was unsuccessful in her bid to stop a pro-life law in Texas that bans abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy. Despite her efforts to keep abortions legal in the Lone State State up to the day of birth and a destructive mob bent on keeping late-term abortions in place, Texas lawmakers sided with unborn children.

Today, that law will go into effect that will protect unborn children in Texas who are capable of feeling pain.

That central portion of HB 2, protecting pain-capable unborn children is based on the Pain Capable-Unborn Child Protection Act, drafted by National Right to Life. Texas will now join nine other states in prohibiting the excruciating deaths of the smallest members of our human family, NRLC tells LifeNews.

“While attacking smaller pieces of HB 2, opponents of pro-life legislation never challenged the protections on pain-capable children; even our opponents realize this legislation, and the extensive science behind it, is sound,” said Mary Spaulding Balch, J.D., National Right to Life director of state legislation. “Unborn children and their mothers deserve better than the violence of abortion.”

“The American public understands the importance of this law. Pain-capable unborn children should be protected from the violent act of a dismemberment abortion. Sadly, 40 states still allow it. We continue to work for a day when mothers and their children are fully protected and respected by our laws and our society,” added Balch.

National Right to Life Continued: “Forty years ago, the unborn child virtually did not exist in medicine. “Fetal medicine” was an oxymoron. Our understanding of pain was so primitive that even a newborn undergoing surgery did so without anesthesia! They received only a paralytic to keep them still. Today, pain-capable unborn children are treated as patients. And now Texas joins nine other states in protecting them from being killed by abortion.”

In a nationwide poll of 1,003 registered voters in March 2013, The Polling Company found that 64% would support a law such as the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act prohibiting abortion after 20 weeks — when an unborn baby can feel pain — unless the life of the mother is in danger. Only 30% opposed such legislation. Women voters split 63%-31% in support of such a law, and 63% of independent voters supported it.

“Today’s signing builds on our continued commitment to protecting life for more than a decade. This is an important day for those who support life and the health of women in Texas,” Perry said the day he signed the bill. “Signing HB2 further solidifies the foundation on which the culture of in Texas is built.”

“HB2 brings improvements to the quality of care women receive,” Perry added. “HB2 protects unborn babies after the fifth month of pregnancy.”requires a doctor providing abortions to secure admitting privileges at a nearby hospital, and lastly, requires a doctor to personally administer the abortion-inducing drugs to the patient.”

The bill relies on the science of fetal pain to establish a Constitutional reason for Congress to ban abortions late in pregnancy.

The science behind the concept of fetal pain is fully established and Dr. Steven Zielinski, an internal medicine physician from Oregon, is one of the leading researchers into it. He first published reports in the 1980s to validate research showing evidence for it. He has testified before Congress that an unborn child could feel pain at “eight-and-a-half weeks and possibly earlier” and that a baby before birth “under the right circumstances, is capable of crying.”

He and his colleagues Dr. Vincent J. Collins and Thomas J. Marzen were the top researchers to point to fetal pain decades ago. Collins, before his death, was Professor of Anesthesiology at Northwestern University and the University of Illinois and author of Principles of Anesthesiology, one of the leading medical texts on the control of pain.

“The functioning neurological structures necessary to suffer pain are developed early in a child’s development in the womb,” they wrote. “Functioning neurological structures necessary for pain sensation are in place as early as 8 weeks, but certainly by 13 1/2 weeks of gestation. Sensory nerves, including nociceptors, reach the skin of the fetus before the 9th week of gestation. The first detectable brain activity occurs in the thalamus between the 8th and 10th weeks. The movement of electrical impulses through the neural fibers and spinal column takes place between 8 and 9 weeks gestation. By 13 1/2 weeks, the entire sensory nervous system functions as a whole in all parts of the body,” they continued.

With Zielinski and his colleagues the first to provide the scientific basis for the concept of fetal pain, Dr. Kanwaljeet Anand of the University of Arkansas Medical Center has provided further research to substantiate their work.

“The neural pathways are present for pain to be experienced quite early by unborn babies,” explains Steven Calvin, M.D., perinatologist, chair of the Program in Human Rights Medicine, University of Minnesota, where he teaches obstetrics.

Dr. Colleen A. Malloy, Assistant Professor, Division of Neonatology at Northwestern University in her testimony before the House Judiciary Committee in May 2012 said, “[w]hen we speak of infants at 22 weeks LMP [Note: this is 20 weeks post fertilization], for example, we no longer have to rely solely on inferences or ultrasound imagery, because such premature patients are kicking, moving, reacting, and developing right before our eyes in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.”

“In today’s medical arena, we resuscitate patients at this age and are able to witness their ex-utero growth and development. Medical advancement and technology have enabled us to improve our ability to care for these infants…In fact, standard of care for neonatal intensive care units requires attention to and treatment of neonatal pain,” Dr. Malloy testified.

She continued, “[t]hus, the difference between fetal and neonatal pain is simply the locale in which the pain occurs. The receiver’s experience of the pain is the same. I could never imagine subjecting my tiny patients to horrific procedures such as those that involve limb detachment or cardiac injection.”